Merry Christmas!

It has been my intention to post a tutorial for this little arrangement in the days leading up to Christmas, but the camera was mislaid until it just turned up - hiding on a chair under the table in the dining room. As there are only two of us and the cat here, we had no reason to pull that chair out....

However, better late than never, so here goes: the arrangement above was gifted to Marilyn D. of Charminis, at our group's holiday potluck. I have another version of it, and will put that photo up later!



I began with a woodsy round and a small wooden plate. You can, of course, substitute a ready-made tray or plate, or make a base of cardboard and beads. I drilled a hole in the centre of the plate, and in the centre of the wooden round, in order to insert a cut-down pin to make the whole sturdier. Glue the disc to the plate, and when the glue is dry, paint in the colour of your choice, or use stain. As Marilyn had mentioned she was considering a white Christmas setting, I went with white.



The second step required some evergreen foliage, glue, and some sparkly stuff; I have some very fine glitter that I used for this. Make a ring of greenery to fit the edge of the plate, and glue it in place. you will have to hold it until the glue grabs hold. Once the greenery on the disc is glued in place, gently brush on some white paint, and immediately sprinkle some of your chosen glitter over the wet paint. It will dry onto the paint.



Now comes the fun part, decorating! Going with the white theme, I made a white poinsettia flower, substituting gold micro beads for the railroad apples I used in my poinsettia tutorial; you can find that tutorial by going to the side bar on the blog. I used a cream-coloured pencil to draw in some veins on the poinsettia petals; once the poinsettia was dry, I used a very fine paintbrush and some half-and-half white glue and water to draw a glue line over the veins of the flower; as with the wreath, sprinkle on some of the fine glitter over the glue. Continuing with the white theme, I made six Christmas roses or hellebores, from a five- or six-petal small punch, using the palest green paper I have in my stash. A dab of yellow paint on the end of a stem, on top of which you glue a bit of yellow flower soft or similar material, makes the fluffy stamens. Slide the blossom up to the paint blob, and secure with a dab of glue.


The candles are cylinders of half transparent and half white Fimo, with a tiny bit of fuse wire (you could also use glue-stiffened thread) in the centre to represent the wicks. Make a hole and insert the wire with some liquid polymer clay before baking, or with a little bit of glue after baking. The candles vary in height, so position them as you like.

White was my choice; you could go with a red theme, a blue theme, a multi-colour theme, whatever your dollhouse vision. You can vary the number of candles, add candy canes or mints, gingerbread men or dried fruit slices. Make your own personal statement with your arrangement.



Here is the arrangement for my flower shop display; as the wreath material was a little thinner, I used tiny tufts of model railroad clump foliage to make a "moss" bed for my candles to sit in.